Personal Branding – Improve your Google ability

Have you ever typed your name into Google? When you do, is it really you that comes up?

It’s fast becoming a well-known fact that HR staff and hiring managers at many companies type job applicants’ names into Google before deciding whom to interview. What comes up when your name is submitted to Google could determine whether or not you get a job.

But even if you own your own business or have a current job, online branding is a free way to make yourself more marketable. For an entrepreneur, it makes it easier for people looking for their good or service to find it. For someone currently employed, it can help establish them as an expert at what they do, which can help them get a raise or maybe even find another, better-paying job.

You can improve your Google ability in three easy steps. That is how:

1. Join social networking sites. If you are already in them great; if not, join. And not just sites like Facebook and Twitter, which, while they’ll show up on Google, aren’t really designed to present the user in a professional light. You must also join LinkedIn and post your resume. Sites like Meetup.com can showcase your interests, even smaller niche social networking sites like brazencareerist.com will help. Find sites with message boards where you can create a user profile and post content. The key is, when you do that, use your real name as your username. That way those posts or at least that site will show up when someone types your name into Google.

2. Comment on major blogs. He finds a blog on the New York Times website and comments on topics that seem relevant to his career: media, if he’s interested in publishing; small business if he is an entrepreneur; finance if you want to be a broker. Include your name in your posts (sign them or, if you can create a “username”, use your real name).

3. Google yourself – and when you do, review the results. Click on the results you want to appear higher in the results list (that is, the results that are actually you). One way Google determines search result ranking (the order in which results are found) is which links were clicked in the past when someone searched for that term. So, regularly (monthly or even weekly) type your name into Google and click on the results that are really yours and that you want to appear first.

Congratulations, you now know how to improve your Google ability.